


beautiful scars on critical veins

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: The Kids Are Alright [6]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Child Abuse, Dark, Djinni & Genies, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Fractured Fairy Tale, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Justice, Lesbian Character, Magic, Mal fucks shit up, Poverty, Revisionist Fairy Tale, United States of Auradon (Disney) Is Not Perfect, Witchcraft, Women Being Awesome, and both of them regret treating the Isle kids like they did, because she can't stand King Adam or Faery Godmother, thank you very much, the biggest fuck you to canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-18 20:11:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14859482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: If you live long enough, if you see enough pain, you start to see the same agony in people's eyes. You start to understand, intimately, the pit of starvation in another's stomach, the pain of a lash against the back, the sting of going barefoot over cobblestone and broken glass.This can start to break the strongest of women.Let me tell you about a Faery’s magic.It is hungry. It seeks to right wrongs in any way it sees fit. It will search to the ends of the earth for a solution, and then-  It devours, burns, seeks out an outlet and pours itself into it.Mal is Fae. She is Dragon. She is the daughter of the Mistress of all Evil, but she is more than her mother ever could be because she knows how to work the system.She is everything ancient and powerful, all the magic of Auradon locked away in the resentful soul of a child of the Isle.She is their worst fucking nightmare.





	beautiful scars on critical veins

**Author's Note:**

> Title and lyrics are from "Kids In the Dark" by All Time Low.

_You think I’m not a goddess?_

_Try me._

_This is a torch song._

_Touch me and you’ll burn._

**-Margaret Atwood**

 

Let me tell you a fairytale.

\---

Every VK carries the name of a dead child close to their heart.

For Carlos de Vil, it is his brother Caleb, killed by their mother’s henchmen six years ago. For Jay El-Amin, it is his mother, dead at 17 giving birth to him in a dirty ship. For Evie Ulrich, it is Dizzy Tremaine, dead of tetanus from an untreated cut from her hair shears.

For Mal Flores, it is four-year-old Alex Wilde, the flu-stricken daughter of the only two adults who cares about the children.

When they enter Auradon, they carry death and illness and pain with them- but not all of it is their own.

\---

The world they live in is dark, and dismal, but it’s theirs.

Every VK knows the nooks and crannies, the darkest secrets and the worst murders. They know the location of every manhole opening, know where each gang's exact borders are, know where the best black market items can found (stolen). They know the darkness intimately, both in evil ambition and physical environment.

The barrier doesn't just block magic- it blocks light. Dimness covers the Isle and its inhabitants. VKs aren't just unused to cookies, to magic, to swimming- they aren't used to the sun.

Darkness is far more familiar to them than light.

\---

Mal knows the power of protection, of using everything at your disposal to save your gang.

The instance Mal gets to Auradon, she constructs wards. Her magic festers, blisters, crackles its invisible way across those she seeks to protect. It glows blue over Evie, burns gold over Jay, shines silver over Carlos. She weaves wards of protection against bloodshed, drowning out any violence and ill-intent aimed at the ones she loves.

Her magic has always hungered to be used, and in this way she gives it an outlet.

\---

Every fairytale has a Faery, a princess, a witch. It has True Love and True Evil, a hero and a villain. It always ends with the Faery destroyed, the witch devoured by flames, and the princess living happily-ever-after.

What happens when the Faery decides they don't want to be devoured?

\---

“You’re not an Auradonian,” Audrey spits, and Mal raises an eyebrow. She doesn’t care about what this spoiled princess says. She isn’t Carlos, who wants to live in this world more than he could ever want to live on the Isle. She isn’t Jay, falling in love with too many parts of this world. She is far less and far more than they could ever be, far too in love and hate with the world that raised them.

And besides, every gang leader knows that the worst thing something could say about a gang leader has nothing to do with being Good, or Auradonian, but-

“You’re not a child of the Isle anymore,” says Queenie Bates, daughter of the Queen of Hearts, and Mal’s spine straightens. That’s a slight to her honor, to her power and stature as one of the four main gang leaders. “You're just like _them._ Look at you.”

Mal looks around, and she finds that there are multiple VKs looking at her without fear or respect in their gazes. To her horror, she realizes that they see her as Auradonian, and no question why- she wears a green lace dress and black leggings, Isle colors in Auradonian fashion. She has become the very world they resent, has adopted the trappings of a life denied to them.

Her heart clenches. She is _not_ an Auradonian- she is a Isle gang leader, the First of the Rotten Four. She is not ruffles and lace, not florals and light colors. She is not Good.

The next day, she wears her beloved purple-and-green leather jacket and old dragonskin pants to lead her group around the Academy and the Capitol. When Faery Godmother’s brow furrows at her appearance, Mal arches a cool eyebrow. As the Faery Godmother goes on her way, the VKs in Mal’s group regain some of their respect for her.

(For once, Mal’s magic does not buzz under her skin. It simmers down, content with her anger.)

\---

Here in Auradon, Mal’s magic itches under her skin. It wants her to cast constantly, to wreak spell upon spell until this sensation finally disappears. It spent eighteen years cooped up in dormancy- here, from outside of the barrier, it yearns to be used.

She sees the wand and thinks _This is the power that was barred from me, the magic that could have been used to save dozens of innocent lives._

\---

“You don’t deserve the world you were blessed with,” she hisses to Audrey, when the princess tries to tear Ben away from Carlos, when she spits slurs and screams insults. “Not anymore than all of those children deserved to die on the Isle.”

She sees the Auradonian shock and her eyes harden. There are many truths that VKs know that Auradonians don’t: the deep ache of starvation, the lash of a parent’s hatred, the pain of betrayal.

There is so much that these Auradonian children don’t understand- that they will _never_ understand.

\---

Her magic itches, clamors for an opening, cries out to her-

\---

She resents the King and everything he stands for. He and Faery Godmother think themselves Heroes, think themselves Saviors-

Every child’s name is on their heads, sewn into their legacies.

_Alex. Scherezade. Caleb. Dizzy._

The list continues endlessly, with children dying every week that Auradon keeps them on that dreaded Isle.

_Alex. Scherezade. Caleb. Dizzy._

The names pound through her head, beating out a tarantella of grief.

She remembers them all- every child who died on the Isle. Every child who wouldn’t have died if Auradon had decided to care.

_Alex. Scherezade. Caleb. Dizzy._

She continues helping children escape the Isle, because no one deserves to live in filth. No one deserves to die, unloved and unwanted.

She whispers in Ben and Carlos’ ears, knowing that they’ll be the ones to make the changes necessary.

Mal knows the value of a well-placed word, the change spells can impart. She remembers Uma, how she used curses to destroy people and their families. She remembers King Adam and how he cursed the lives of every Isle child.

Mal has been told fairytales all her life, stories about villains and heroes. Those on the Isle are villains while those in Auradon are heroes. That's the only story Mal has ever known, after all.

(What not everyone realizes is: the hero of the story is dependent on who the narrator is.)

What is the difference between Uma and King Adam? One rules a kingdom, while the other rules a ship. They both claim to defend the rights of victims, both say that they railed against unfair curses and rules.

It leaves Mal to wonder: what’s the true difference?

(Here’s the secret: there isn’t one.)

\---

Some VKs change their colors. Carlos does, shifting fully into the colors of his new family- blue, white, and gold. Nick Eisner, son of Hades, peels off his blue and black and transfers into the greens of his girlfriend, daughter of Tiana.

Mal does the opposite. She keeps her greens and purples, her dragonskins and leather. She keeps her layers of armor, keeps her combat boots and dark purple hair. She keeps everything that marks her as non-Auradonian, as part of the same group as every child dead because of the King’s reckless plans.

(She decides to be everything VK without becoming the villain this world thinks she is.)

She keeps everything that marks her as a survivor, not a victim. She wears her VK clothing for all the victims, the too-early deaths, the kids who never got to grow up.

_Alex. Scherezade. Caleb. Dizzy._

She never cries- she can't afford to- so instead she lets the anger burn its way through her.

_Alex. Scherezade. Caleb. Dizzy._

She will not let their names go in vain.

\---

Evie has always occupied a strange place between Auradon fanatic and Isle diplomat, straddled the line between her mother and the princess she’s supposed to be.

Evie dresses in her blues and reds, loves her leathers and lace. Her eyes are outlined in shades of blue and black and her mouth is painted in crimson as she faces the King of Auradon.

She looks like the princess her mother called her, but she is far more Isle than that.

She is the diplomat the Isle knows her as, the woman with the silver tongue and magic fingers. (When Mal kisses Evie, tumbles into bed with a blue-haired girl, watches her work her way through Ben and Faery Godmother and King Adam, the buzzing under her skin lessens. Isle magic runs strong in Evie, her touch giving Mal strength and happiness that the anger inside of her doesn't quite cover.)

Mal loves Evie Ulrich for everything the world doesn't easily see. She loves her for the snarky wit she holds back for propriety’s sake, for the care she puts into every outfit she makes, for the nimbleness of Evie's fingers as she sews fashions for other people.

(As Mal presses her lips to Evie’s, she holds her hand to Evie’s ribs. They're slowly filling in in a way that Mal couldn't help her achieve on the Isle. Auradon has done exactly _one_ good thing for them, and that’s introducing them to Dr. Cavalletta.)

\---

(Mal finds it a despicable sort of ironic that child abuse is one of the most taboo crimes in Auradon and yet King Adam endorsed one of the greatest campaigns of child endangerment since the days of the great Villains.)

\---

Mal’s magic is fire. It is explosions, it is grenades. It devours those who seek to stand against it, rips apart those who seek to harm the already scarred.

Evie's touch, her innate magic, flows like water- gentle, a caress. Its effects often take time to express themselves, but sometimes they quench a thirst instantly. Mal kisses Evie and her hunger is sated. Her burning anger is drowned, her drive to devour quenched if only for a moment.

 

Mal knows the value of Jay’s loyalty. She knows that Jay has learned the jinn curse all too well. He doesn’t use spells, doesn’t let out the magic bubbling under his skin. Instead, he learns to run, to fight, to use everything his father didn’t.

(There is a lamp thrown deep into the ocean, in a place far beyond human touch. Jay learned from his father’s stories, and he buried his source of power where no one can ever find it. He values his freedom far more than any magic he could ever want.

His wrist cuffs tie him to his lamp, but they do not tie him to anyone’s wishes. He is free to bestow his loyalty upon whoever he wants, and Mal understands what it means when he listens to her without that stupid lamp.

So she never searches for that lamp, despite the power it could give her. She knows others’ loyalty, and she in turn is loyal to them.)

 

Neither Carlos nor Ben have any magic ability. They are as dry as Cruella de Vil, as magicless as the General Lis or Gaston. Their presence makes that itch intensify slightly, and their effect on her magic only increases after they perform True Love's Kiss. Suddenly they are beacons for any kind of magic, any wish for energy.

She looks at Ben and she has bitter hope for the first time in her life. Maybe an Auradonian might understand their plight, if the most ancient of all magics ties him to a VK.

She wraps wards around Ben just as she does around their Gang. (It doesn't take much of her magic to power his wards, unlike Carlos’ original ones, as the strange power of True Love powers his wards as Jay and Evie's innate magic did when they first arrived in Auradon.) If he is to help her people, the children of the Isle, then he must be protected.

(Something in her aches to see an Auradonian under her protection- especially the son of the King who trapped the Isle children.

She grins and bears it, though- for the sake of Carlos, for the children of the Isle, she holds her tongue.)

 

Jane has magic- Mal knows this as well as she knows that the only Faery that could face her mother in power is the Faery Godmother. Mal knows how Jane’s magic snaps and blisters just like hers, how it digs at her skin and claws at her heart. She knows how the magic hurts more and more the longer it goes unused, and she _knows_ that Faery Godmother has forbidden her daughter from using magic.

“Use it,” she whispers in Jane’s ear, “Use your magic for change.”

“Mother says it’s bad,” Jane says, “She says that we’re better off using knowledge than magic.”

Mal sees the ambition in Jane’s eyes when she performs spells, the hunger in her eyes when Mal shows her the bare limits of what her magic can do.

“You have wings,” Mal says, “They ache, don’t they?”

Jane’s gaze snaps up to Mal’s, her eyes pained in a way not many Auradonians’ are. “How do you know?” she hisses, guileless.

Mal hasn’t been that innocent in years, ages, _eons._ She doesn’t even remember a time when she so easily trusted another person as Jane does her.

“You are Fae,” Mal says. _You’re like me. You hunger for an ancient world, one long ruined and destroyed. Your basic urge is to devour, to rip apart the petty mortals who hurt you. You are far more powerful than your mother ever let you be._ “Your natural state is a magical one. Your wings are as part of you as your magic, as part of you as your fingers and toes. Your hunger for freedom is tied up in everything you are.”

She offers Jane a smile. “You should be flying.”

\---

If you live long enough, if you see enough pain, you start to see the same agony in people's eyes. You start to understand, intimately, the pit of starvation in another's stomach, the pain of a lash against the back, the sting of going barefoot over cobblestone and broken glass.

This can start to break the strongest of women.

Let me tell you about a Faery’s magic.

It is hungry. It seeks to right wrongs in any way it sees fit. It will search to the ends of the earth for a solution, and then- it devours, burns, seeks out an outlet and pours itself into it.

When Mal recognizes the pain in people's eyes, she knows that she cannot let this story of pain be repeated in any more children.

(She _will not_ let it happen to any more children.)

\---

She feels a presence in her wards, scraping, digging its fingers through the layers of magic she's erected, and she lashes back. She fights back, devours those intent on devouring her.

Mal is Fae. She is Dragon. She is the daughter of the Mistress of all Evil, but she is more than her mother ever could be because she _knows_ how to work the system.

She is everything ancient and powerful, all the magic of Auradon locked away in the resentful soul of a child of the Isle.

She is their worst fucking nightmare.

Mal lashes out, carving gaping wounds into those who dare defy her magic. She carves the names of the dead into those who try to hurt the defenseless- no, now they are _defended_ \- children of the Isle.

 _Scherezade El-Amin-_ this burns itself into the skin of a boy who tries to force himself on Codruta Ivanovich, the mute daughter of Baba Yaga.

 _Dizzy Tremaine_ \- a girl slings slurs at Jeffrey, a boy who just wants to paint (to make art like his dead sister) and the name marks itself on her knuckles.

 _Caleb de Vil_ \- Princess Audrey tries to separate her brother and the Isle boy he's fallen in love with, shouts abuse at them both, and she finds Carlos’ brother's name arcing across her ribs.

 _Alex Wilde-_ King Adam himself receives the honor of Alex Wilde’s name burned into his throat when he pushes the idea of banishing Auradon’s jailed to the Isle yet again.

And the list continues, until every name of a dead child is carried on an Auradonian's skin. They are branded with the same names the children of the Isle carry on their shoulders, see burned on the backsides of their eyelids.

“You can't stop me,” Mal tells Ben, the King, when he goes to speak to her. “I have woven the spell into the very fabric of the land of Auradon. If you try and disrupt it, you will disrupt the ley lines that provide health to the crops and clean water to the rivers and lakes. This land has witnessed the deaths of her children, and she seeks vengeance.”

_Alex. Scherezade. Caleb. Dizzy-_

Their names finally taste like absolution instead of guilt.

\---

This is the story they don't tell you.

This is the story of children devoured by magic they've never known, of children torn apart by systems far removed from any life they've ever lived. This is the story of children who fought back, who devoured countries, who faded away and who died quietly.

This is how a world is rebuilt: in order for a world to rise from ashes, it must first be burnt to the ground.

\---

There is a quiet boy at the back of the crowd of VKs that arrive in Auradon. He is wearing a red hoodie and faded black jeans, and at first glance he seems like any VK off the street.

Then Mal looks closer, and she can't believe what she's seeing. His face is hauntingly distinctive, and she knows it as if from a long ago dream. The right side of his face is covered in a web of scars, the kind left behind by a vase shattering across the face of a terrified child.

“She killed our father,” he says, “She tried to kill me too.”

His gaze is longing as it is directed at Carlos, and she knows that the boy with the ruined face is exactly who she thinks it is.

She swallows as he says, “I go by Simon Spier now.” She isn't shocked that he decided to forgo the name given to him by the woman who tried to murder him.

Her magic flares as she looks at this boy who she has championed the name of, carved his name into the flesh of the girl who tormented his brother. Anger burns in her chest at the web of scars on his face. That he escaped doesn't change the fact that his mother tried to have him murdered.

She examines what she knows of him quickly. This boy has no magic, just like his brother. He is defenseless against attacks from Auradonians, from VKs, from anyone at all.

She decides swiftly that she will not let Caleb de Vil become broken glass, become another wrecked being. She will burn to protect his life as she did his dead name.

(She will not let him become the corpse she thought he was.)

“Welcome to Auradon, Spier,” she says, baring her teeth in a fashion approaching a smile.

Her former Second smiles, and the web of scars cracks. “Good to be here, First Mal.”

\---

It has been said that Hope has two daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

Malaga Flores- Daughter of Maleficent, Faery, Dragon, Lover, Witch- has plenty of anger, and her friends, her names, her people give her courage. She is everything Auradon dreads and everything Auradon needs.

\---

Some may argue that the Faery is the villain of this story, but in this case the King has much to speak to. The point of fairytales is to reveal truths about the world- in this one, the Faery devours the world before it can do the same to her.

So the world burns, and the fairytale ends as all do: the evil defeated, the hero winning.

(And they all lived happily-ever-after.)


End file.
